1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a metal platform tennis court, to metal support apparatus a plurality of which are particularly useful for providing the deck of a metal platform tennis court, and to apparatus for supporting screen material and for maintaining the screen material in tension and which support apparatus is particularly useful with such metal platform tennis court.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Platform tennis courts are known to the prior art, in particular wooden platform tennis courts are common and have been in use for many years. As is known in the art, wooden platform tennis courts are susceptible to weather and the elements and tend to have an undesirably short life. In addition, being made of wood, and since platform tennis is typically played in the winter time, such wooden platform tennis courts are difficult to heat to enable the removal of snow since wood, as is known, is a poor conductor of heat. Further, since the typical platform tennis court is 30 by 60 feet, it must typically be built on site due to the weight of the component material and hence is not readily manufacturable in component parts for transportion to and assembly at a platform tennis court site. Further, since, as is known, commercially available wood does not typically come in dimensionally accurate configurations, a lack of uniformity of construction is commonly found in wooden platform tennis courts. Still further, wood, as is known, is more susceptible to taking a permanent bend than is metal, e.g., an aluminum alloy, and hence platform tennis courts made of wood tend to not be dimensionally stable over a long period of life. Further, the deck of the typical wood platform tennis court is comprised of 2 by 6 deck members supported by spaced joists which are in turn supported by pilings. Such a wooden deck, as is known, exhibits a non-uniform deflection at various points thereover in response to the load provided to the deck by a running player, more particularly, when a load is applied to the deck at a point immediately over that portion of a joist supported by a piling, there is no deflection in the wooden deck since the force or load is transmitted directly to ground and not through any member capable of deflection. Other portions of the wooden deck, in particular, those portions of a 2 by 6 deck plank suspended over two joists, exhibits maximum deflection and hence a player running across such a wooden deck will encounter points of great deflection and points of no deflection.